Virus spreads 'explosively' in N Korea, 6 dead

The coronavirus has been spreading across North Korea "explosively" since late last month, killing six people and leaving 187,800 people in quarantine, the country's state media reported on Friday, report agencies.
The data represents an unprecedented admission of an "explosive" outbreak in a country that had reported no previous confirmed cases since the pandemic began, and could mark a grave public health, economic and political crisis for the isolated regime.
South Korea's new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office this week, plans to provide COVID-19 vaccines and other medical support to North Koreans, and his government would discuss details with Pyongyang, his spokeswoman said on Friday, without elaborating.
Yoon told reporters later on Friday he plans to propose holding working-level talks with North Korea via the country's unification ministry which handles inter-Korean affairs, South Korea's News1 said.
Health officials made the rare admission of an emerging public health crisis after the country reported its first outbreak of the virus - after long insisting it had no infections and refusing outside humanitarian aid to fight any spread.
The announcement of fatalities came as the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, was visiting the national disease-control headquarters on Thursday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
In a sign of growing urgency, the state-run Central Television for the first time showed Kim wearing a mask during a Workers' Party meeting.
Meanwhile, the overall number of Covid cases is fast approaching 520 million amid a rise in new infections in parts of the world.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 519,991,591 while the death toll from the virus reached 6,259,954 Friday morning.
The US has recorded 82,325,687 cases so far and 999,125 people have died from the virus in the country, the data shows.
India's Covid-19 tally rose to 43,116,600 Friday, with 3,187 new cases registered in 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data. The total death toll stands at 524,181.